


Snippets

by Mithrakana



Series: The Chronicles of Fen'Namas [3]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, M/M, Snapshots
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-21
Updated: 2015-09-12
Packaged: 2018-04-10 13:34:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4393856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mithrakana/pseuds/Mithrakana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A peek into the author's workbook, if you like. Brief snapshots in the lives of various characters from <i>Chronicles of Fen'Namas</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Sparrow in a Cage

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! I miss you!
> 
> Out of nowhere, I started a Modern AU Colemance called _[Help Wanted](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4272774?view_full_work=true)_. Not everyone's bag, I know, but I do plan to finish it before I resume the _Fen'Namas_ series. It won't take too long.
> 
> (If I write both at once, Solas will end up with a cell phone txting Una from the roof of Castle Denerim like 'OMG. tell me you aren't seris right now.' '*Seris.' '*Sevris.' 'S.E.R.I.O.U.S. FDH.' - FDH being Fenedhis abbreviated. You know, for texts. You see my point!)
> 
> So...here's some tea & crumpets while you wait! For fun! 
> 
> These scenes may or may not make final cut in future books. May contain mild spoilers, or things that just aren't true. At all. Have fun guessing if the scenes are real or not!
> 
> For example, this little opening snippet: Veyla leaving Cole high and dry. (Hint: _That will **never, EVER** happen._ Ever.)
> 
> (I'm learning to use [Tumblr](http://mithrakana.tumblr.com), if that's your thing!)

* * *

The Hanged Man was a far cry from the boîtes of Orlais - no ice cubes rattled when Cole slammed his empty tumbler on the bar.

Whiskey made his silken voice go rough around the edges.

“I can’t believe she’s gone.”

Varric shook his head. He paid a solemn nod of bidding to the man behind the bar, lest the whiskey stop its flow. He clapped a palm of silvers down on wood and lacquer.

“I never told you love was easy, Kid.”

Blue eyes half-dead with heartbreak watched the coinage disappear inside the Barkeep’s pocket. A popping cork, and amber heaven sloshed.

Too sullen to sound curious. “…You’re paying first.”

A slap upon the spirit’s slender back. “When you’re drinking to forget, my friend, you pay the Barkeep in advance.”


	2. The Library at University of Orlais: First Date in Times of Peace

“It would seem the news of my identity has reached Orlais.”

Una glared at nothing as their footsteps echoed through the marble concourse.

Tersely. “So it would.”

Her temper was not lost on Fen'Harel. He grew quiet at her side, returning all enthusiastic whispered greetings with a gracious smirk-and-nod.

Out of nowhere: “And who, exactly, is Elizabeth?”

“Ah.”

“‘Ah,’ indeed.”

Softly. “A pupil met in passing, ma sa'lath, and nothing more.”

Solas chuckled as he lay his hand across the middle of his prickling lover’s back. “It is not like you, Lady Lavellan, to bluster so with envy.”

His touch brought self-awareness. Una’s face relaxed, thin eyebrows morphed from scrunching scorn to arching pride.

Snobbily. “Her accent is atrocious.”


	3. Esme

Captivity was most unkind to cheek and bone and soul. The Wolf that Was spat blood upon a cracking floor that once was grand, eyes slotted with a maddened will of molten steel. His voice was hoarse with lack of use, or screaming.

“I will not say again.”

Steadfast feet. Words spoken as a father learns to speak - a quiet calm, the better to seek reason. Cole’s outstretched hand beseeched for stillness even as it brandished glinting death.

“Archon Valethai is dead, old friend. I’ve come to take you home.”

“Move.”

“Solas, she’s a chi -”

“SHE IS A MONSTER! YOU ARE SOUL-DEAF AND A FOOL!”


	4. A Crooked-Eared, Incorrigible Cur

One of countless morning walks. They endlessly enjoyed each other’s company.

“Tell me, Fen’Namas. The  _shemlen_ adage concerning Dalish women - have you found it true?”

Warily, eyeing her rapscallion of a bondmate longways. “Regretfully, I have not had the pleasure.”

“Ah. More’s the pity.” 

Silence from him, then. She sighed, half-taxed, half-playful. Try though she might, she could  _not_ resist. She  _knew_ better, but…

“Have you no intention of enlightening me, my love?”

An airy chuckle through his nose. The corner of his impish mouth could hardly help but quirk.

“My apologies, vhenan - of course. I did not think you int’rested.”

He cleared his throat.  _“Like a Dalish girl forgets the woods._ Used in context, it implies that certain…satisfactions…illicit compelling changes in a Dalish woman’s tastes. Frankly, I’m impressed you’ve never heard it. During the war, men would toast the saying every time we humored Varric with a pit-stop for a pint.

“Inquisitor or no, I suspect this adage earned my lady complementary libations by the gallon.”

“…I see.” 

Una didn’t miss a beat - she changed the subject, and he never got his answer. 

"You _know,_  the Dalish say Sylaise has forged each elven fellow’s ears to match his elfhood, the better for a chooser’s eyes to choose. In that respect, should your cock not be misshapen?”

A quiet scoff.  _“Mark_  them? You have not met Sylaise. Given any option, lethallin, she would much prefer castration.” 

Mock-scandal then, his eyebrows rising high. He turned, full-faced, to eye her with surprise. “The lady finds my ears misshapen.” 

“You have my heart, dear Fen’Harel, but…Well, they  _are_ a wee bit squished and mangled. Wouldn’t you agree?”

His fingers rose to give his ear a ginger touch. Una volunteered: “Perhaps it’s all the sleeping? That may be - yes. They look quite laid-upon.”

“…I see.”

Una mildly shrugged and looked ahead. It was her turn to fight a wicked smirk. 

“Regardless, I was pleasantly surprised.”


	5. A Well-Dressed Child with Chimes in Both His Pockets

Endrin lingered in the doorway of her mother’s workshop with a youngster’s pudgy fingers clutching at her tunic from behind. The silent leech attached himself to Endrin in the market square just ‘round the corner from the stationers, and well – here he remained. His face was pressed against her back. Her skin was humid from his burrowing breath.

Not interrupting mother was a household rule. Even  _father_ never dared. Maybe if she blurted fast enough –

“Momma! I-found-a-little – ”

* * *

**_“SOD IT!”_ **

The tinkling sound of o’er-a-dozen clockwork pieces falling from alignment to the floor. Startled fingers cost Bianca  _hours_. Her eyes were hidden by the ocular contraptions worn for detailed work, but rest assured they sought the Stone beneath her stool much as a foundering chantry boy beseeches Heaven.

_Ancestors, you’re **sure** the monster from my belly is a blessing?_

It took two hands to snap her goggles up onto her forehead. Bianca rubbed her eyes and sighed, striving not to lose her temper.

Endrin was her mother’s child – the girl did  _not_ apologize. She carried on with whatever-it-was she deemed so damned important. Bianca wasn’t ready to start listening until her daughter’s breathless thesis neared its end.

“…an  _orphan,_ Momma! I can’t believe they left him, just because he’s daft! Who  _does_ that? To their  _own **son?**_ Humans are  _disgusting.”_ Flatly, in conclusion: “We have to keep him.”

“How many times –  _No._ No cats.”

A stomping foot, a screech: “Momma, you aren’t  _listening!”_  The next moment, Endrin was half-turned around and cooing in the shadows of the doorway. “Come on, little guy. Let go. You’re ok.”

The boy would not be coaxed, but Bianca caught a glimpse of shock-white skin and little eyes that gleamed like skystone. Bianca’s eyes went slotted, even as her mother’s instincts clamored in her belly.

Flatly, “Why can’t you bring home kittens like a  _normal_ kid?”

* * *

_“COLIN! C’MERE, KID!”_

It was a little  _late_ for holding hands, but Varric clutched those dainty fingers for dear life as he rushed Cole’s daughter from the papermaker’s porch.

No ten year old had  _ever_ been more resolute and grim. “He can’t  _hear_  you, Uncle Varric. Mamae’s gonna kill us. We’ll be dead.”

 _“Relax,_  Buttons. When your Daddy was a kid, he used to disappear for days.”

Internally, poor Varric’s brain was sweating.  _Maker’s balls,where **are**  you, Noisy? I turned around for half-a-sodding - I didn’t hear the  **sodding –**_

“He takes them off when no one’s looking. He’s trying to find Mamae…” The faintest shiver of her lower lip. “I miss them, too.”

A heavy sigh. Varric wished he had the time to take a knee and spend a tender moment. Instead, he dragged the willowy young lady through the crowded cobbles like a ragdoll, voice pitched to beat the throng.

“It hasn’t been a  _week_ yet, Buttons! Your parents haven’t even  _made_ it.”

“They’re in the sea…”

“They’re  _on_ the sea, Miss Buttons. And they’ll be on the sea again when they come back.  _COLI-I-IN!_   _Shit.”_

Fawn stopped dead at Varric’s side and gave his hand an anxious jerk, her slender finger pointing down the street. “He’s there. The one with metal things instead of flowers.”

_Groan…Just my luck. Just my **sodding** luck._

A moon-eyed stare. “…Why don’t you want to go there, Uncle Varric?”

Varric muttered as he gave the girl a sideways squeeze and pecked her on the cheek. 

 _Cute little_   _(something-something). Worse than your sodding father._


	6. The Little Halla and Her Calf, pt. 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember! ("Blahblahblah.") = Elvish! Here's a trial run for it. Is it irksome?

* * *

(“Life is not a _painting._ A tree meant in decoration is no tree at all. Form must follow function. Function, _function,_ Fen’Harel.”)

_Sigh..._

(“Eight thousand years spent living, and still my stubborn brother would refuse the world its seasons.”)

* * *

The late night air was filled with campfire smoke and distant music. Thanks to The Craftsman’s hand, _Namadahlan_ had fireflies now. One alighted in her golden hair as Una tread the pebbled path to home.

There was alcohol as well. And brambleweeds, and waterwheels and steam. Footpaths, buildings, _trade._ Importantly, two waystones.

Fen’Namas and June stood together on that day, both barefoot in the sun. Una argued as a desperate mother will.

(“We have an Emissary,”) she insisted. (“Waystones are not worth the risk.”)

At her complaint, June’s brilliant hands saw fit to pause. He looked at her, though he rarely looked at anyone – his eyes were blue and deeper than the sea where Ghilan’nain’s behemoths lived. Though June was a scornful sort, in this his voice was plain. Fen’Namas could not _begin_ to comprehend the uncommon gentleness with which he meted his rebuke.

(“Mortality is curse enough, young sister. You doomed these people once with your mistakes. You wish to doom them doubly with your guilt?”)

Fen’Namas was not renowned for holding back her tongue. As she beheld the wicked scar that claimed The Master Craftsman’s eyebrow and a quarter of his garnet mane, her mouth knew only stillness borne of shame. It would not do to argue with the only Elvhen god who called her kin and saw her cherished elves as more than vermin. Not to mention – _he was right._

June did not nod, nor did he scold. He simply faced his work and stated: (“Fen’Harel has coddled you.”)

* * *

Five years hence, and life rolled on in blissful peace. Fen’Harel and Fen’Namas stood watch upon their dais as the lines twixt Dale and City slowly blurred.

 _Slowly?_ Five years. Five years was a _moment._ Less than that. Five years was an eyelash shed while bathing in the river. Five years was a fleck of pyrite in the belly of a mountain. Every fragment of her life was touched with this, this _endlessness_ transcending life and birth and death. Just tonight, she knew the bottom of her tankard ‘fore the barman took it from the shelf and filled it in her name. Her mind’s eye saw that tankard rot in ruin like The Hanged Man one day would. As would the barman’s corpse, and Varric’s corpse, and Dorian’s. Fertilizer. The flesh of those she loved was grass and earth and flame.

It was no wonder Fen’Harel preferred to sleep in this, their dying world where only mortals lived.

Indeed, _Namadahlan_ without had changed. The Dread Wolf’s modest den endured however, unscathed by June’s calculating hand. Una’s heart warmed as she entered, footsteps whisper-quiet in the summer-scented grass.

If Solas heard her coming – which, assuredly, he _did_ – he paid her no response. He was far too busy with his painting for the child.

His candle was a beacon in the cloudy night. Her love sat effortlessly straight upon an unassuming wooden stool, attentions focused on the hide he chose as canvas. Una watched him work as she drew near, his steady hand creating hair-thin lines of shining black. His fingertips were tidy, but his fingernails knucklebones were streaked with pearly white and silver. His steel-blue eyes were razor-sharp. His cryptic mouth was resting on a smile, soft and gentle.

Una waited for his dainty brush to leave its work before she slid her arms over his shoulders. His broken concentration was apparent with the sudden whisper in his nose. He set his tools aside, he rolled his head to crack his neck. He cleared his throat, he took her wrists. He kissed her inner arm as he allowed his shoulders brief respite against her breasts. Una hugged him closer as she muttered in his ear.

“You’re nearly done. It’s lovely, _ma vhenan._ I’m sure the child will cherish it.”

Spoken with a chuckle in his throat, and half-a-frog from lack of use. The very air rang in their ears with lateness. “Children rarely cherish things, my love.”

“Perhaps an Elvhen child does not, old dog, but mortal children do.”

Solas hummed concession. They brought their heads together as they shared the painting’s view.

“What of Lace and Varric?”

“You’ve faculty to paint and spy at once, _vhenan?”_

“Hardly. My lady smells of ale and pipesmoke. One assumes.”


	7. The Dreams of Archon Valethai’s Blood-Dripping Chandelier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am not dead. My life is still up in the air. I still think about these stories constantly, and I am going to finish them when things settle down.
> 
> I miss your love. I miss writing things for you to read. :) I can't wait to return to that life. Soon. Soon!
> 
> _Wait for me, vhenan. Smile for me, and wait._

* * *

 

Consciousness. The body-state of being fully awake. The mental state of being self, of being anything. Bound against the Archon’s vaulted ceiling as he was, as he had been now for months, The Dread Wolf boasted neither.

Fen’Harel reduced himself to sense and single purpose. This reduction was his final conscious choice, his proven method to survive captivity - Yes. He’d lived this hell before.

He could hear his own blood dripping on the marble tiles below. He could hear them laughing as they waited to be served. He heard the door, their feet. The guard, the alchemist. He heard the stopper and he smelled the acrid stuff. He heard the chains unhook, he felt descent.

Even when the Archon’s lackeys dallied with a dose, his dreams were only dreams. The Fade was gone to him.

In these deluded dreams, Solas knew himself. In these deluded dreams, he imagined Fen’Namas was safe beside him in her shemlen featherbed. He would gaze into her mournful eyes - he’d always fancied them the color of a mossy riverbank. He would touch her scowling face. He would whisper: _Wait for me, vhenan. Smile for me, and wait._

In these deluded dreams, he imagined she could hear him.

* * *

_I love you in the morning_   
_Our kisses deep and warm_   
_Your hair upon the pillow_   
_Like a sleepy, golden storm_

_Yes, many loved before us_   
_I know that we are not new_   
_In city and in forest_   
_They smiled like me and you_

_But now it’s come to distances_   
_And both of us must try_   
_Your eyes are soft with sorrow –_   
_Hey. That’s no way to say goodbye._

_I’m not looking for another_   
_As I wander in my time_   
_Walk me to the corner_   
_Our steps will always rhyme_

_You know my love goes with you_   
_As your love stays with me_   
_It’s just the way it changes_   
_Like the shoreline and the sea_

_But let’s not talk of love, or chains,_   
_Or things we can’t untie_   
_Your eyes are soft with sorrow_   
_Hey. That’s no way to say goodbye._

-Leonard Cohen,  _[Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wI48PS3m59A) _ (<Click for a video!)


	8. The Knight of Roses

All children speak the secret language of their parent’s rituals. When they saw mamae slick her hair or caught a whiff of papae’s boot polish, Fawn and Colin knew they’d have a sitter if Miss Mayren wasn’t home.

On nights like this, the butter-headed pair would stay with one of several uncles. Uncles Thal and Dorian were kind, but they ate funny food and they were far too strict. Although Aunt Mellina was great fun, Uncle Cullen’s mind made Fawn too sad. Of course, Fawn never told her gentle father that.

Without fail, on nights like this, the children begged to stay with Lace and Varric. Fawn would please-please-please whilst silent Colin tugged his mother’s courtly dress. The game was won or lost with mamae’s blessing. Papae hated Kirkwall, hated the idea of his sweet babies playing in The Hanged Man. Varric swore he kept the kids upstairs, but Cole knew better. He would scowl and fold his arms, he would take a breath to tell them no. He would close his eyes and sigh when Veyla cut him off to tell them yes.

Though Cole and Veyla loved each other dearly, the Deshyr’s Hand knew better than to cross an elven mother. He’d tried it once.

Come eventide, the grinning duo sat high and proud on two of Uncle Varric’s tallest barstools playing with his cards. The room was loud, the minds were louder. Thoughts born in lager hummed and jumbled, or they’d start yellow and go reddish-purple, or they’d crush themselves in circles like a dead frog sticking to a wagon wheel. Fawn listened as she drew. Young as she was, she understood more than a little girl had any business to.

Colin loved to sort the cards of uncle Varric’s Wicked Grace deck - he did so, stacking like with like in flawless rows. To Cole’s empathetic daughter, each card was a character made real. Fawn sketched their portraits on a borrowed sheet of too-expensive parchment as she spoke to them.

“Uncle Varric likes you best,” she once confided to the Knight of Roses. “Your bendy corner lets him know you’re coming. …I’m sorry. I don’t do eyes good.”


End file.
